


grant me the serenity

by fuscience



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-27
Updated: 2014-02-27
Packaged: 2018-01-13 23:57:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1245112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fuscience/pseuds/fuscience
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The battle is over, but the war rages on. In the end, it’s just Stiles and Lydia in the hospital and neither really know what to say. Or do. Or think.</p>
            </blockquote>





	grant me the serenity

**Author's Note:**

> First foray into the Teen Wolf fanfiction! Yay for 6 am to 2 pm shifts, sudden inspiration and the early hours of the morning with nothing to do.

 

 

_**ⅰ.** to accept the things I cannot change_

 

She holds his hand in the hospital room, elbows resting on the bed, lips grazing his knuckles and it all feels more intimate than what Lydia is truly comfortable with. Stiles awakens with a flutter, everything quiet, but for Scott's snores drifting in from outside the door. The young alpha is sprawled across three chairs in the hallway with a threadbare blanket Lydia had found draped across his body, mouth open and eyes closed in fatigue.

 

Stiles doesn't look surprised to see her, but, then again, Lydia and  Scott have been skipping school for days to sneak into the neurology ward of Beacon Hills Hospital and visit him.

 

"Hi." His voice is exhausted and rough, despite the days he's spent sleeping.

 

Lydia considers the  book she read on chronic insomnia, the one that now lies in the garbage can after she threw it away in anger. Chronic insomnia, sometimes termed somniphobia or hypnophobia because it is considered an irrational fear of a normally harmless activity like sleep. Stiles’ fear was anything but irrational with the nogitsune invading his mind while he slept and violating him while he watched this monster destroy everything and everyone he holds dear. Physical side effects include anxiety, depression, slow motor movements, low muscle sensitivity, loss of appetite. She thinks of the techniques she memorized: avoid using labels for the condition, don't purposefully avoid or confront triggers.

 

_Is she one? Is Stiles struck by an all consuming fear when he looks at her now._

 

There was a passage in the book, _Chapter 5: Your Brain and You_ , detailing the physiological recovery, how for every neuron there were two caretaker cells that existed for the sole purpose of repair and clean up. That time alone would, in fact, make things better. Lydia can attest to this, time has given her a certain amount of clarity on all the fucked-up things that have occurred in Beacon Hills.

 

Facts are familiar and safe and Lydia has turned these particular ones over in her brain a million time, but they can’t seem to erase how Stiles' cheekbones curve inward, gaunt with pain, how his eyes are shadowed over with guilt, and how his body curls in, shielding itself from everything and anyone that might come near.

 

"Hi." She responds, "How are you feeling?"

 

It's a weak platitude. He's obviously doing horrible.

 

"Really shitty." Stiles gives a wry smile, echoing her knowledge. Every movement appears to make his grimace, and, his attempts to sit up are met by failure.

 

She wants to make it go away, everything's that's hurt and twisted him into this new bitter, beaten Stiles, but Lydia has never been good with the soft sciences.

 

 **ⅱ.** _courage_

 

"It gets better." Lydia  can see how his mouth twists in disgust and anger at her words, the lines of his face wrenched into a poor caricature of the Stiles who used to throw around whimsical  one liners like they were going out of style, and knows that that was the wrong things to say.

 

"I killed people." His teeth gnash together, grinding, "You just found the bodies."

 

Its like someone stuck a white hot poker into Lydia’s gut, swirled it around, and then left it there to burn a hole from inside-out.

 

"Yeah, I just f _ound the bodies_." She spits out.

 

Stiles has a horrified look on his face as if he had no control over the words he just said - for a second Lydia is frightened by the mere idea that any remnant of that horrible spirit is left. he manages to look her in the eye for the first time in a week - sheer panic driving him to it.

 

" _Lydia_ -" 

 

" I just woke up in a bed of blood, just disappeared for three days naked in the forest with no memory , just screamed and screamed and **screamed**." Her voice cracks, " And never found anyone alive. Except you."

 

 **ⅲ.** _to change the things i can_

 

Lydia found him, predicted his death as the nogitsune took over, turning his insides black with decay, but he came back from the dead. They brought Stiles back back.

 

"I'm sorry. So sorry." He looks appropriately apologetic for Lydia, but the words themselves have been repeated so often lately that they are worn out and frayed at the edges.

 

"You'll get better, Stiles." she says quietly, calming down, and letting her old scars taking a backseat to his real and present pain. Lydia stood over his body not a week ago, fists slamming into his chest, beating the air back into his lungs - her anger at Stiles is not nearly as strong as her grief over his death.

 

 _He has to get better_. Lydia doesn't know if she can hold it together alone.

 

 **ⅳ.** _wisdom_

 

She pokes the freckles on his arm, one by one, counting them up the sinewy muscle. It’s like mapping constellations across the sky, infinite and connected. Astronomy was her third favorite subject, right behind Physics and Chemistry.

 

"You know, Stiles," Lydia thinks aloud, hair falling to one side. "You seem to have all the faith in the world in everyone but yourself."

 

They remember the red string and Stiles bending down to unwrap it from where it strangles her fingers. Him staring at her like she could be everything, even when she's near tears with frustration.

 

"Hi, pot. I'm kettle." Stiles gives a short, little laugh, shrugging his shoulders and messing up Lydias freckle count. He's attempting to laugh the levity of their conversation away, but It's a rusty and unused skill and all he receives for his trouble is a blank stare from the girl at his bedside.

 

Brevity is the heart of wit and Stiles was never meant long for this life. He's been dead and is dying - they all are really. A hacking cough escapes him and it's an earth shattering sound. They can both hear the build up in his lungs, the congestion of his soul. Lydia tightens the grip on his hand like it will be enough to keep him anchored here with her - she’s his tether, that should give her some power over him leaving.

 

"You'll be okay." She whispers into his palm, eyes shut tight.

 

 _He has to be_. Lydia repeats in her head.

 

**ⅴ.** _to know the difference_

 

Lydia used to have a healthy aversion to fear and pain. Somewhere between discovering she was a mythical creature and becoming friends with Scott Mccall and Stiles Stilinski and finding out her New bestie hints werewolves she lost it. which is probably why she's spent the last week in the hospital - even if she's not the one currently being examined by doctors.

 

A year ago no one knew how high her IQ was, she had been in a true, if not healthy, relationship and had carried a social reputation that spoke of teenaged girl in every language. Before Stiles and Scott and Allison, before Peter and Derek and kanimas and werewolves and banshees everything was good, or, at least, good enough to pretend.

 

When her parents split up Lydia asked her mother how they had managed to get  married if they hated each other so much. Lydia's mother looked at Lydia with guilt, like this failed marriage had ruined her as a daughter.

 

"Sweetheart. _Oh, Lydia_." Her mother had a habit of covering her mouth with her hand when she got emotional, like the well manicured fingers could stem the flow of feelings. "Sometimes, when you take a chance on someone you let the good in with the bad and sometimes the bad wins."

 

When Lydia tries to separate people into good and bad parts of her life she can do it fairly clearly except when she looks in the mirror.

 

"Lydia?" Stiles’ gritty tone, like he's been swallowing sand, jerks Lydia into to the present and he watches as her eyes flick upward to him. There's a lump in his throat that never seems to fade and only grows when he takes a moment to absorb the state of Lydia, the dark circles under her eyes, the plain jeans and old t-shirt, the scabbard over scratches on her cheek.

 

"Sorry." He chokes out, "I'm so sorry."

 

Stiles is a broken record.

 

 _Or just broken_ , he thinks.

 

His free hand reaches across to run a finger along the wound - it might scar and that makes him want to vomit. This was not the type of permanent impression he ever imagined leaving on Lydia Martin.

 

"Don't apologize." His finger continues to trace her scratch, "Stop it."

 

She slaps his hand away, watching it come to rest on top of the stark white bed sheets.

 

His fingers are long, they can overlap and intertwine when wrapped around her neck. His hands are strong, they can squeeze the breath from her throat.

 

Stiles trembles at the memory, pushing Lydia into the wall, grabbing her strawberry blonde hair, the scent of flowers washing over his body as he throws her to the ground. He can still feel the smooth brick biting into his knees as they come to rest on either side of her body and his oh-so long and strong fingers curling around the scarred skin of Lydia Martins neck.

 

_Asphyxiation: condition of severely deficient oxygen in the body arising from abnormal breathing. The act of strangulation results in generalized hypoxia where the tissues and organs are systematically affected by a lack of air. The blood she bleeds will be a darker red as hemoglobin has no oxygen to bind. Her fingers and toes will be the first to turn blue as perfusion of oxygen decrease.  Her heart will begin to constrict circulation and contain necessary functions to the core. Without oxygen, cells will stop producing energy. They will die and, then, Lydia will die._

Lydia had never ascribed to a particular religion until Stiles straddled her body and attempted to murder her in cold blood.

 

 _Oh god,  oh god, oh god_.

 

It was a silent prayer because her throat was being compressed by the pads of Stiles’ fingers.

 

**ⅵ.** _and I will love you all the days_

 

Stiles reaches his hand out again uncertainly, like a child craving comfort, but unsure whether he deserves it. Lydia moves to take it, his hands will never scare her.

 

"Thank you," It's a tired sigh of words from a very human boy.

 

"I'll go wake Scott. He'll want to talk." She stands and makes a small movement towards the door. Stiles looks like he wants to say something, but another coughing fit hits him. His back arches in pain as the convulsions spread, and he crosses his arms across his torso trying to keep his body from splitting at the seams. Lydia is by his side in seconds, making a valiant effort to hold him together and still the shudders of pain.

 

The spasms fade and Stiles' lips are spattered with red, red blood.

 

  
  
  


 


End file.
